


invincibility

by Trillian_Astra



Category: The Hour
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Threesome, ménage à trois
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-25
Updated: 2013-03-25
Packaged: 2017-12-06 12:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trillian_Astra/pseuds/Trillian_Astra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For this prompt on the Great Writers Steal ficathon on LJ: the hour; bel/freddie/hector | well, I was wrong. there is no modern romance. (yeah yeah yeahs)</p><p>in which bel discovers that reinventing romance might just be more difficult than she thought</p>
            </blockquote>





	invincibility

At first they live in a paradise of kisses and touches and picnic dinners on the floor of Freddie’s flat and reading to each other by candlelight.

(Bel reads bits of essays, Wollstonecraft and Godwin. Freddie reads poetry from America, Carlos Williams and Ferlinghetti. Hector listens. He prefers Bel’s prose to Freddie’s verse, but then he’s never been much disposed to poetry.)

They tell themselves how this is going to be different, how it will just be the three of them, with no-one to come between them, how together they are invincible.

But it doesn’t last.

 

Hector and Freddie become colder to each other. Neither of them will admit it, but Bel knows that it’s jealousy. She feels Hector’s eyes on her when she and Freddie are working on a story or just curled on the sofa together listening to a record. She feels Freddie stiffen imperceptibly when she kisses Hector goodnight. She sees how they barely look at each other.

 

She stays at her flat, instead of Freddie’s, for the next couple of nights after she realises.

Then Freddie shows up at her door, eyes full of unshed tears.

 _Hector’s gone to the country_ , he tells her. She fills in the details for herself. Back to the country means back to his wife, means leaving them, leaving whatever it is they have.

She takes him in her arms, and as he sobs into her blouse she realises that perhaps she didn’t know what was going on after all. They fall asleep in each other’s arms.

Hector comes back, appearing at Bel’s door looking ashamed of himself.

 _What do you have to say for yourself_?, she demands.

All he says is _Sorry_.

 _Not bloody good enough_ , she says, and slams the door in his face.

 

Freddie goes back home, neat and tidy and holding himself apart from the world, and if you knew then that would tell you something was wrong: Freddie is never neat and tidy when he’s happy.

 

He tells Bel that he just needs some space.

She gives it to him. She sees him at work, of course, but they don’t talk, not about real things. After a week she thinks that he looks better, and walks over to his flat with a bottle of wine.

She uses her key to let herself in, calls out his name.

She hears a moan from the bedroom. She pushes the door open, sees a lithe body tangled with a stockier one, sees fingers tangled in hair and lips brushing skin.

She drops the wine bottle. The noise makes them look in her direction.

 _Bel_ , Hector says, his voice ragged.

 _I’m sorry_ , Freddie murmurs.

She runs from that room, from them, from the flat.

 

Freddie appears at her side, looking thoroughly dishevelled. _I’m sorry_ , he repeats.

 _We weren’t supposed to end up like this_ , she says. _We were supposed to be different. We were supposed to be together._

She looks at him, and considers a question. He seems to read it in her eyes and answers.

_Don’t make us choose, Bel. I love you. We both do._

And in that moment, she knew. She knew that this was never going to work, that the honeymoon would always have ended, that it had only been a matter of time.

 _I know_ , she says.

She wonders how she can tell them – if she even has the strength. She looks at Freddie, and sees Hector standing across the street. She doesn’t know how much longer they can do this. But she knows that she loves them enough that she doesn’t want to hurt them.

 _I know,_ she repeats. _I love you too._


End file.
